


la cabane Guernésiais

by Kate_Wisdom



Category: Enemy at the Door (TV)
Genre: Angst, Banter, Canadian Shack, Dubiously Consensual Almost-Kissing, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Military Uniforms, Naked Huddling for Warmth, Nazi Germany, One-sided (But Actually Mutual) Pining, Trying to Keep Things Platonic, Unresolved Sexual Tension, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 08:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25467679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kate_Wisdom/pseuds/Kate_Wisdom
Summary: Doctor Martel and Colonel Richter get caught in a snowstorm.
Relationships: Philip Martel/Dieter Richter
Comments: 10
Kudos: 10
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	la cabane Guernésiais

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aquatics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aquatics/gifts).



> Warnings for potential infidelity and depictions of Nazi ideology. Please read with caution.

This Guernsey winter was shaping up to be a harsh one, the harshest the Germans had experienced since their arrival in the Channel Islands in 1940.

Richter knew that such temperatures ought not concern hardened soldiers accustomed to the bracing cold of the Fatherland; certainly not in light of the inhumane state of affairs facing their comrades on what remained of the Eastern Front. But ever since the tide of war had started to turn against them, ever since their already-meagre rations had been halved and medical supplies nearly exhausted, the conditions on their tranquil, temperate island backwater had become a real hardship for soldiers and islanders alike.

Richter himself could no longer deny he felt the cold. It seemed none of his staff could; Reinicke had taken to wearing his overcoat indoors, and half the Kommandantur had come down with some hacking cough or snivelling chill. 

This included the Kommandant’s driver, who had just succumbed to galloping bronchitis. Richter had him conveyed to the hospital, which meant that, when Dr Martel presented himself at the Kommandantur that afternoon for their pre-arranged visit to Torteval, Richter had been obliged to get behind the wheel of his official car himself.

The roads were frosty, the ground and trees laden with last night’s snowfall. The thin afternoon sunlight softened Martel’s countenance more than the lighting in the Kommandantur ever did; this allowed Richter to focus on the doctor’s actual words without being distracted by Martel’s scowling expression. 

“I don’t know what you think can be achieved by this visit, Colonel! You lot are going to keep interning the British-born islanders anyway, like you did last year - - regardless of what the General does or doesn’t do, and whatever I have to say about it.” 

Martel paused, and then said in a more reflective tone, “Besides, Laidlaw’s not going to be persuaded by anyone, let alone the likes of me. He’s got nothing left to lose! He’s practically a prisoner already, what with an armed escort in his house and that damned cannon in his back garden.”

As Martel mentioned, the army had indeed billeted soldiers at Laidlaw’s from the beginning of the occupation, and requisitioned the use of his grounds for munitions storage. But Martel didn’t know the half of it. Laidlaw was the brother-in-law of a German colonel who was being closely watched by the SS on suspicion of treason against the Reich - - a fact which Richter had been given to understand after Von Wittke had asked him to drive him to Laidlaw’s house one freezing night in 1941. Of course, Richter had no basis to suspect that the men had been plotting to depose Hitler instead of merely fraternising, and indeed after von Wittke’s departure from the island he had every reason to believe Laidlaw had refused to cooperate. 

Now, Richter essayed, “Major-General Laidlaw was a founding member of the Anglo-German Fellowship. Some islanders still suspect him of being sympathetic to the National Socialists. He has mentioned before that he feels - - what is the term? Caught between a rock and a hard place.” 

Philip was silent, and Richter continued, hands clenched on the steering wheel, “The General has not been well. Should the order come again… I hope not to have him interned if I can help it. Indeed, I have attempted to convince him that he can still be of use here on the island during this difficult time. He will not accept it from me, for fear of being further identified as a collaborator. But perhaps you will have better luck.”

“I seriously doubt it, Colonel,” Martel said, with relish; enthusiastically, he fell to describing the various reasons why. There were many, and they all seemed to rest on the spectrum between Richter’s own lack of imagination and Martel’s lack of patience in indulging him.

Richter looked through the windshield at the darkening sky. There had been storm clouds overhead when he had driven von Wittke on this road from the Kommandantur to the Major-General’s stately home in Torteval; he hoped the afternoon’s grey skies did not herald the same dangers ahead.

  
  


* * * 

  
  


Philip could have told the Colonel that the afternoon’s mission would be a failure. _Had_ told him that, even, in all the ways he knew how. Still, Richter had always been the sort of chap who needed to set eyes on the inevitable for himself.

And he’d seen, all right. Laidlaw was a ghost of his former self, an anaemic shell of a man, barely bothering to belt a moth-eaten dressing gown over dirty pyjamas. The sitting room in which they’d been received was dusty and freezing cold, the grate barely giving off any heat. The Gefreiter said that the General had dismissed his cleaning lady months ago, and that he’d hardly been eating at all - - not that the billeted soldiers would have had much left over from their meagre rations for him in any case.

At this rate, internment in a German camp, where there was apparently proper food, might be preferable to this slow decline.

The General barely responded to Richter’s exhortation to assist with whatever the Kommandantur’s new morale-boosting campaign was, or to Philip’s appeal to reinstate his cleaning lady. He sat in his faded armchair and barely said a word.

After a few minutes, Richter looked ready to give it up as a bad job, but Philip wouldn’t be so easily put off. He stoked up the fire, insisted one of the billeted soldiers bring them a cup of ersatz tea and biscuits he’d found in the otherwise-bare pantry, and then sat with Laidlaw until the man finished them.

“General, if you don’t take better care of yourself, I’m going to have Betty Ridge come here every day and make you breakfast, whether you like it or not. Or if you prefer, the Kommandant here will order those soldiers to be rostered with cooking duties for you!”

Philip didn’t quite dare glance over at Richter when he made this threat on the Kommandant’s behalf; instead, he busied himself making sure Laidlaw’s blankets were tucked warmly around him. When he finally turned around, he saw the Colonel was hiding a smile.

“I will have a word with the Gefreiter,” Richter said, managing to sound amused as well as annoyed.

The sky was fully dark when they finally emerged from «the» house. It had started to snow heavily. Frosty flakes dotted Richter’s uniform cap with white as the Colonel turned up the collar of his winter coat against the elements.

They got into the car, and Richter started the engine. “It’s later than I had expected, Doctor. Shall I take you straight home? You can collect your car from the Kommandantur tomorrow; I can send the replacement driver around in the morning.”

Philip didn’t want to think about his dark, empty house. Olive had been spending the last few days in residence at the convent, and they had given Ruth the week off; there would be nothing but leftover cabbage in the bread-bin.

“Back to the Kommandantur would be fine,” he said. No reason to keep Richter from his own hot dinner in the mess, from meat and schnapps and the company of his men.

Richter nodded, and they set off. As the snow continued to descend thick and fast around them, the Colonel was forced to turn up the car’s headlights and turn the windscreen wipers to the maximum setting. 

Soon, they could barely see through the windshield, and the car slowed to a crawl along the winding country road.

“Not the best night to be out,” Richter muttered. 

“No, it’s not,” Philip agreed. Then he added, tongue-in-cheek, just to tease old Richter: “This is probably the safest place I could be, though, in the circumstances!”

Even as he said it, Philip realised it was actually true, at that. Funny thing, how his unlikely relationship with this enemy - - the Kommandant of the armed forces presently in occupation of Guernsey, the man who had sent him to prison in the Cherche-Midi - - had nevertheless almost become a source of comfort for him in the course of this long-drawn war. It could be a familiarity with the devil one knew, but Philip thought it might be more than that: a sort of grudging respect, and an understanding that, under different conditions, they might even be friends.

Richter smiled faintly. “Indeed, Doctor. Which is why I am concerned to see you safely home.” If Philip didn’t know better, he’d have sworn that the Colonel was worried about him and his lately empty hearth.

“I wouldn’t take you out of your way on my account,” Philip retorted, a bit more sharply than he intended: understanding was one thing, but fraternisation - - or, God forbid, _collaboration_ \- - was quite another. 

“As you wish,” Richter said, stiffly. He studied the road, his hands rock-steady on the wheel. 

Philip sat there in silence for long enough that he began to feel like a bit of a heel. The Colonel hadn’t needed to stay this late at Laidlaw’s; he had done it out of courtesy to Philip. Although then again, this visit to Torteval had been Richter’s idea. What was politeness, what was obligation, what was respect owed to a gallant enemy - - these were not cut and dried things, here on Guernsey, between Philip and this man. 

“Do you think there will be further orders for deportations?” he asked, eventually, for something to say.

Richter grimaced. “I do not know. I hope not. The deportations only serve to undermine morale, and to no good end. Only… it is an uncertain time for the Reich,” which was the most qualified remark about the German war effort that he had ever made, at least in Philip’s earshot. 

Ordinarily, this would have been a tremendous boost to Philip’s spirits. If the usually cautious Kommandant could make such an injudicious remark, it must mean that the rumours were true: the Germans had suffered crushing defeats on the Eastern Front, and the Allies were gaining ground everywhere. But when confronted with the weariness on Richter’s face, all Philip could feel in the moment was a curious sympathy.

He pushed that deeply unsettling feeling away. “You’d imagine the Reich would know better than to continue with their hare-brained policy of - - _Good God!"_

One moment the road was clear, headlights shining a pathway through the tumbling snow. The next, a dark figure filled the windscreen, as if appearing out of thin air - - 

\- - a large animal: a cow, or someone’s hunting dog, lost in the snow - - its defeated eyes looked like George Laidlaw’s, but they couldn’t be; it was a trick of the light - -

Philip heard himself shouting; saw himself grappling for Richter’s arm. Richter, cursing, hauled the steering wheel sharply to the left. 

There was a tremendous squealing of brakes - - the car veered off the road - - and then the darkness rushed up to meet them.

  
  


* * * 

  
  


With a start, Philip jerked back to himself. Everything around him was pitch-black, his ears filled with the sound of howling wind and someone’s laboured breathing. 

_Richter_. The Colonel was stretched limply across the steering wheel. The windshield had shattered; glass pebbles littered the dashboard and Richter’s slumped shoulders. Philip undid his seat belt with shaking fingers and reached over, feeling for the man’s pulse. Thank God, it was steady, his respiration regular.

Carefully, Philip brushed away the glass and leaned the unconscious body back against the driver’s seat, holding Richter’s head gingerly with his hands. 

“Colonel? Dieter, can you hear me?” 

Philip had never used the Kommandant’s first name before, but for some reason that small familiarity seemed to do the trick. Richter groaned, inhaled sharply, and opened his eyes, blinking away the fog with some effort. 

“What - -? Where - - ?”

“We drove off the road. There was an animal - -” Philip gestured vaguely at the shattered windscreen, which was letting in the snow and the bitter cold.

Richter had recovered enough to curse again. Then with a convulsive movement he unbuckled his own seat belt and struggled out of the car. 

Philip was forced to scramble after him, and found himself up to his knees in a deep, snow-filled ditch several feet from the side of the road, in what appeared to be a particularly isolated stretch of wasteland between Les Simons and Les Laurens.

They managed to get the car’s engine running again, but the tires had been badly flattened. Despite their best efforts, the two of them couldn’t manage to extricate the vehicle from the ditch. 

They tried, anyway, for the better part of half an hour, each taking turns behind the wheel while the other pushed, until their winter coats and boots were soaked from the snow, and Philip could see Richter had started to shiver.

Philip didn’t know how old the Colonel was - - somewhat older than his own age, perhaps; a little more than fifty? He had always cut such a vigorous, athletic figure in uniform, Philip had never had the occasion to think of him as anything save in the prime of life. But now, leaning heavily against the side of the car, favouring one foot and trying to regain his breath, for the first time he looked vulnerable, almost weak, as if age had finally caught up with him.

“We need to get out of the cold,” Philip said, more to himself than to Richter. The car wasn’t an ideal choice of shelter: the broken windscreen was letting in the elements, and he suddenly realised that the fuel line might be damaged, which could make the vehicle a fire hazard. 

But it was a better option than setting off on foot in the dark and the snow. As far as he could remember, the nearest house around these parts was almost a mile away, and Richter was definitely starting to limp.

“Colonel, have you hurt your foot?”

“I must have turned it on that last push,” Richter grimaced. He looked winded, face grey with cold and fatigue under his snow-laden hat, at the limits of his strength. 

Philip weighed a third option: leaving Richter in the car while he went for help. He wasn’t much of a hiker, and without a compass he might well become disorientated in the darkness and this thick snow. Or if he wasn’t overcome by the elements and managed to return to the ditch with the rescue party, what was to say they wouldn’t find the Kommandant’s frozen or charred corpse? 

The snowfall was getting even heavier. Philip decided the best thing to do was to head out to investigate for a bit - - perhaps there would be a barn in the vicinity, or an actually useful bunker built by the Germans that he didn’t know about. If he didn’t come across anything in five or ten minutes, he would turn back. 

He conveyed his plan to Richter. “Wait for me in the car, Colonel, and try to get some rest. But don’t fall asleep - - I’m not sure if the car is going to suddenly catch fire.” There was some risk of concussion as well; Philip didn’t know how hard Richter had hit his head.

“German cars do not catch fire easily,” Richter muttered, but got behind the driver’s seat without further argument, which was worrisome in itself.

Philip climbed out of the ditch. He was planning on following the road, but now he was on level ground he thought he could see, across the expanse of snow-covered meadow illuminated by the car’s headlights, a distant, dark structure that could be a shed or a lean-to.

He set off through the frosty field, cursing as fresh wetness soaked into his boots and socks.

He was rather afraid the far-off shape might turn out to be a mirage, but, after slogging through deep snow for ten laborious minutes, he arrived at the structure: a sturdily-built storehouse of some kind, standing in what would possibly be, in summertime, cultivated farmland or cattle pasture. Its door was unlocked, its interior empty of stores. 

Philip couldn’t spot any other signs of habitation that signalled a residence or farm-house nearby, but beggars couldn’t be choosers; in this pinch, it would do.

And not a moment too soon, either. When Philip arrived back at the freezing car, Richter was half asleep. A thin layer of frost had formed on top of his gloves and sodden winter coat, and his cheek was as cold as a corpse’s.

“Colonel!”

“Not sleeping,” Richter gasped, returning to full consciousness by sheer force of will. Philip took note of the blue tinge to the Kommandant’s lips, saw that his pupils had trouble focusing. He had to get indoors out of the cold without further delay.

Philip retrieved his medical bag from the back seat. Richter managed to climb out of the car, but he couldn’t put weight on his ankle without groaning in pain. 

“Lean on me,” Philip said; he got his arms around the man, and together they limped toward the shelter, through the falling snow.

They were both panting badly when they finally arrived at the shack. Philip felt dizzy; his constitution had never been the same after Cherche-Midi, and long months of poor diet had taken their toll. As for Richter, the Colonel was shivering violently under his coat, seemingly too cold now to feel the pain from his ankle.

The structure was surprisingly dry inside, its stone walls and roof in decent repair. The dirt floor was lined with sacking, providing a form of insulation from external conditions; there were empty grain bags and a pile of old blankets in a corner, left over from summer’s use. A rough window faced the road, admitting the far-off glow from the car’s headlights. Compared with the wind and snow outside, it was a haven of warmth. 

Richter leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. He needed to get out of his wet, heavy clothes; they both did - - out of the storm, hypothermia or the risk of exposure was reduced, but not eliminated, given immune systems already compromised by the overall lack of nutrition. 

“These clothes need to come off, Colonel,” Philip said as he took off his own coat, not pausing to consider how improper it sounded. 

It was a sign of Richter’s own extremity that he didn’t demur. He managed to get his wet gloves off, but his fingers fumbled on the buttons of his greatcoat, and Philip had to help him. Together they took off the Colonel’s medal-decorated field jacket as well, and the sodden white dress shirt underneath, and Philip wrapped him in one of the blankets before getting out of the rest of his own snow-encrusted garments.

To minimise the risk of cardiac incident, hypothermic patients should be laid horizontal. Philip piled the gunny sacks on the ground for them to rest on while he helped Richter with his boots and socks and then his soaked, frost-lined uniform trousers, and laid them out to dry. 

Philip inspected Richter’s right ankle, which did look swollen under the dim light. “Don’t think it’s broken, luckily,” he said, between chattering teeth. “I’d give you something for it, but I’m quite out of morphine.”

“I do in fact have some schnapps left in my flask,” Richter said, wincing as Philip wrapped his foot with the last of his bandages. “But I thought we should ration it until we were really in danger of freezing to death.”

“You were right not to drink it! Contrary to popular wisdom, if we were really freezing to death, alcohol would do more harm than good. No, what we need is dry blankets, and shared warmth.”

“If this is your medical opinion, then by all means,” Richter murmured, and lifted a corner of the blanket to admit Philip. 

Philip was gratified that the Colonel had revived enough to tease him a bit - - because of course Richter’s sidelong look of invitation could only be a harmless joke - - but all the same he couldn’t help but take in the sight of the Colonel in his regulation long johns: thin, of course, from the deprivations they were all facing, but surprisingly athletic, sinewy, with a lean strength that befitted a much younger man. 

With an effort, Philip got a grip on of his professional demeanour, and climbed in under the proffered covering alongside Richter.

The gunny sacks made a narrow and less than comfortable pallet; they had to fit closely alongside each other with the blankets wrapped around both their bodies, in far closer proximity than Philip had ever been to the Kommandant. 

It was a long-standing treatment for hypothermic patients to raise their temperature via gentle massage. Richter’s skin was still cold to the touch, but it wasn’t as clammy as it had been in the open field. Philip kneaded warmth back into Richter’s stiff limbs, discovering hypertrophic scar tissue along the Colonel’s left bicep, consistent with an in-and-out wound that Philip had seen all too often in the last war. There was fainter scarring under Richter’s ribs, which Philip encountered when he slid his hands under Richter’s undershirt to rub against the gooseflesh over still-taut pectoral and stomach muscles. As he pressed closer to Richter, trying to impart more of his body heat to the Colonel, Philip could not ignore the military discipline displayed in the man’s physique. 

Decades ago, as a young medic on the Western Front, Philip had had occasion to bed down beside his comrades in the field, taking comfort from the shared warmth and intimacy that came with physical closeness to another human being. Now, older but seemingly no wiser, and in the grip of yet another war, he found himself bedding down, this time in the even greater intimacy of skin against skin, with his German enemy, no less human than those young British soldiers had been, and finding even more comfort there as warmth and life began to return to Richter’s body. 

“Is this better?” Richter sounded sleepily amused.

Belatedly, Philip realised he hadn’t been observing the appropriate level of clinical detachment, or really any level of detachment at all, and towards none other than the German Kommandant. He cleared his throat. “For now, at least. If we’re lucky, someone will find us before the weather gets even worse.”

Richter frowned, his gaze sharpening at the thought. “Forgive me, I had not considered that Mrs Martel will be missing you. By now, she may even have raised the alarm. When she telephones the Kommandantur, Ernst will know that something has gone wrong.”

Philip couldn’t hold back his sigh: this was the topic which he was trying very hard to avoid, not least with himself. 

“Olive’s not at home. And I’ve cancelled my surgery for tomorrow. No one will miss me tonight, I’m afraid.” 

As Richter went silent, digesting this, Philip added, with false cheer, “Hopefully, someone will miss you, though! And that’s my hope as well - - it wouldn’t be advisable for a Guernsey doctor to let the injured Kommandant freeze to death on his watch, eh?”

Richter’s mouth twisted with complex sympathy, but what he said was, “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. If you let me die, the Controlling Committee might give you a medal instead.”

“You can’t escape your duties so easily, Colonel, I’ll see to that.” Philip wasn’t sure if he meant it as threat or as promise; perhaps it was both. 

Certainly Richter took it as both. He chuckled, and settled back into the circle of Philip’s arms.

  
  


* * * 

  
  


Dieter hadn’t felt this cold since boyhood, when he’d taken a wrong turn and found himself lost in the woods near his parents’ winter estate in Hunsrück. There was the same disorientation, the slow, dreamlike slide away from pain, and an accompanying sense of danger lurking nearby but of being unable to rouse himself to do anything about it.

It was so tempting to close his eyes just for a moment, though oblivion never lifted his burdens for long enough.

Perhaps this was how the soldiers on the Eastern Front had felt before they froze in their trenches; how von Wittke might have felt, returning empty-handed to Saint Malo. How Laidlaw must feel now in his frigid drawing-room with his ghosts.

Young Dieter had been alone in the woods, but this time he felt a comforting presence with him. He thought of his mother, long dead in Wiesbaden, who had been the last person to show him comfort. Anna had never been one for affectionate gestures or cosseting; her self-sufficiency was one of the things he liked best about her, and she had always returned the compliment. 

A chill ran through him at the thought of her. He’d grown so used to not hearing from her at the best of times; now, after her imprisonment, he couldn’t tell whether her continued silence was just part of her usual independence, or something far more sinister.

Someone rubbed his shoulder, addressing him not in the German of his childhood, but in the language he’d learned in school, and used as a young man in Cambridge, where there had been cherry trees all along. 

“Yes, you told me about that,” came the response, which was when Dieter Richter realised two things - - first, that he’d made the remark about cherry trees out loud, and second, that he was lying in the embrace of an Englishman who was technically his enemy.

Richter supposed he should feel somewhat discomfited by this uncharacteristic unguardedness, but he found for once he was rather too comfortable to stand on his dignity. Martel dressed like a badly-paid country schoolteacher at the best of times, but underneath this decidedly unprepossessing exterior, his body was surprisingly strong and welcoming, his tousled, drying mass of hair, released from its usual staid style, unexpectedly soft to the touch, his robust arms a steady, reassuring source of warmth. 

Martel continued speaking, trivialities about cherry trees and their provenance in the British Isles; Richter realised it was entirely for his benefit, so that he wouldn’t fall dangerously asleep.

“You never told me which university you attended, Doctor,” he said, eventually. 

Martel paused before responding, “You never asked. Would it surprise you if I told you I went to Edinburgh? Not that much liking for the English there, I have to say. Good medical school, though.”

“I will accept your word for it,” Richter said; he had had reason to place his trust in Martel’s expertise, and never more so than on this very long night. “I don’t mean to presume, but did you meet your wife at university?”

Martel hesitated for a beat too long, which confirmed Richter’s suspicion that all was not entirely well in the doctor’s household. “We were childhood friends,” he said at last. “And you? You’ve not spoken much about your own wife, Colonel.”

Richter tried to recall if he had spoken of Anna to the doctor at all. Possibly when the news of her incarceration for speaking frivolously of the Führer had reached Guernsey; not since.

“We met at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University. She won the prize for modern languages that year. I was merely a middling student of philosophy; nowhere near as respected as my father was.” Ordentlicher-Professor Helmut Richter had never let him forget it, either; he’d not been surprised when Dieter had eventually eschewed his own less stellar academic career for the military. 

Martel said, “My own father was a country doctor here in Saint Peter Port. We’d hoped Clive would take up the family profession too. He had a place at Cambridge: Downing College, just across the way from Peterhouse, as you’d know… But he decided to go into speedboats and motorbikes instead. And then the war came.”

“Yes, the war.” Richter remembered the day Clive Martel came to the Kommandantur to surrender, the spitting image of his father, pale and brave and heartbreakingly young. He hoped the lad was keeping well, for Philip’s sake. 

“I never asked, Colonel. Do you and your wife have children yourselves?” 

Richter said, wryly, “Anna has always been more interested in her work than in me, or in any putative children we might have had. That door is closed now, of course.” Truth be told, it was a regret.

“Children are a mixed blessing, though,” Martel said, briskly; if Richter hadn’t known better, he would have suspected the doctor of trying to cheer him up. “A source of delight, as well as a special circle of hell. Sometimes both at once.”

Martel did not say that it had been mostly hell for him, though, over these last few years: with Clive in prison, and Clare having retreated to the convent at Cordier Hill in a deep depression. He didn’t have to. Richter was well aware of what had befallen the Martel children, and how difficult it had been for their parents to cope. 

It sounded, also, as if their difficulties had not stopped there.

The doctor was silent for a moment longer, and then, very quietly, with an uncharacteristic unguardedness of his own, made a long-delayed confession. “Things haven’t been the same at home since I came back from Cherche-Midi. Olive blames herself, I think, for what happened to Clare. These days she’s been spending most nights at the convent, and in the day they both help out around the orphanage. She’s also started working at the hospital, but it sounds as if she’s assisting John Forbes’ surgeries there more than filling in for Clare at the dispensary.”

Richter was astonished. Now the doctor mentioned it, he did recall occasionally seeing Mrs Martel in Dr Forbes’ company, both before Martel’s return from Cherche-Midi, and after it.

Philip Martel continued, thoughtfully, “You know, Forbes has been incredibly kind to us. He looked after my practice like it was his own while I was in prison. And it’s not as if I’ve been the easiest run for Olive, either. Frankly, I’m a bit of a nightmare at the best of times, and these haven’t been the best of times. If I were her, I might actually prefer his company to mine.”

At this, Richter twisted around so he could look up into Martel’s face. What he could see of the doctor’s expression surprised him. The sad, reflective reaction was very different from the fury a typical German husband would have displayed over even the slightest hint as to his wife’s disloyalty.

A typical German might have taken this as yet another example of weakness in the clearly inferior English male psyche. Richter was, however, not a typical example of the German attitude. 

He patted the nearest part of Martel’s body in what he hoped was a comforting manner, his fingers finding what felt like Martel’s bare bicep. Found himself saying, vehemently, “Nonsense. That man doesn’t hold a candle to you.”

Martel inhaled in surprise. With some effort, he drawled in response, “Colonel, you’re only saying that to me because I’m the one keeping you warm.” 

Richter snorted. He couldn’t deny, though, that the doctor’s arms were warm indeed.

It was safer to fall back on their usual half-confrontational, half-jocular back-and-forth. “Doctor, you almost insult me. You cannot imagine I would say as much to anyone else.”

“No, I suppose it would be an abuse of your authority,” Martel pretended to muse. “An infringement on the dignity and honour of the Wehrmacht, am I right? But then what does it mean with someone who’s technically your enemy?”

“Fraternising?” Richter enquired, helpfully. “Collaboration? _Treason_?”

The doctor scoffed. “Colonel - - Dieter, now you’re the one adding insult to injury. Merely flattering someone isn’t fraternising. Fraternising is … why, it’s _this_ …”

Martel was chuckling as he leaned in, which was why Richter didn’t immediately discern his intent; he was also distracted by the doctor’s use of his first name. As such, he was taken aback when the doctor - - when Philip - - lay his unshaven cheek against Richter’s bearded one. The rub of stubble was strange but no less compelling for it, as was the agreeable smell of Martel’s skin.

The doctor tightened his clasp, and Richter realised, abruptly, that if he shifted an inch closer, they would find their undressed bodies pressed up against each other’s. Realised, too, that it would be an easy enough thing to turn his head accidentally-on-purpose and bring their lips together in a first kiss.

Philip Martel was only teasing, and even if he wasn’t, Richter would have been duty-bound to push him away. It would be a terrible misuse of power, even worse than if it had been with a subordinate; it might even be a breach of the Hague Convention. And from the doctor's perspective, this act of giving comfort to the enemy might be seen as treachery. No one on either the German or the Guernsey side would ever believe that Martel had not been coerced.

Still, Richter realised he was actually tempted to follow through, regardless of whatever Himmler or the military or his own father might have to say on the matter. As a young man, he had imbibed those liberal values of Berlin academia as were frowned upon by polite society that had been deeply conservative from even before the National Socialists had taken hold of it; he had discovered even more freedoms under the turreted rooftops and cherry trees on Trumpington Street, a world away from home. Since then, he might have donned the uniform of the Wehrmacht in service of Germany, but he had never endorsed the brutal narrow-mindedness that currently held sway in his country, or the strict modalities of love deemed to best serve the interests of the German Volk. 

In that vein, Richter had never been intimate with another man before, but it was not because he had never wanted to be. And what he wanted very much to do now was to draw Philip Martel into his arms and to embrace him, until they both forgot that their countries were at war. 

Fortunately, before either of them could give in to what was certainly an extremely ill-advised instinct, before their lips could meet, the darkness outside was breached by a small, insistent double light.

It was yet far off, but as Richter watched, it approached at a snail’s pace. There could be no doubt about it: those were the headlights of a car being driven in their direction. Clearly when Richter had not returned to the Kommandantur as expected, either Freidel or his orderly had sounded the alarm, and a search party had been despatched to look for him.

“It looks like the cavalry has arrived,” Martel said, grinning. He let go of Richter and sat up, his wild hair standing straight up around his head in boyish disarray. 

Richter couldn’t stop himself from smoothing the wayward curls back into place, and saw the reaction in Martel’s eyes.

“Indeed. We’ve been rescued from the storm,” Richter remarked, trying to match Martel’s casual tone. 

At the same time, he wondered whether this rescue was merely a temporary one, or if any cavalry would ultimately succeed in saving them from themselves.

**Author's Note:**

> Most grateful to K. for the beta.
> 
> [ Guernsey temps/snow levels](https://www.trevorharley.com/weather-january.html).  
> [Details of British citizens interned by the Nazis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportations_from_the_German-occupied_Channel_Islands).  
> [Medical treatment strategies for hypothermia in the 1940s-50s](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3060344/).  
> [Richter’s war badges/commendations](https://deutschesoldaten.fandom.com/wiki/Richter_\(Enemy_at_the_Door\)), including the Wound Badge that demonstrated he had been wounded at least three times.


End file.
